Shaking hands on a sinking ship
by OpheliacAngel
Summary: She does not understand, but she no longer feels that he should be on his knees before her. Tag to 'Underneath.'


**Title:** Shaking hands on a sinking ship

**Author:** OpheliacAngel

**Characters:** Illyria & Wesley

**Genre:** Drama/Angst

**Rating:** Teen

**Summary:** She does not understand, but she no longer feels that he should be on his knees before her.

**A/N: **This is set before and during the scene where Wesley wakes up from a nightmare to find Illyria still in the room with him in 'Underneath.' I've been wanting to write Illyria's point of view for a while. Hope it's okay, she's hard to write. Not slash unless you squint.

**Soundtrack: **Title comes from Joseph Arthur's 'Stumble and Pain'

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She stands staring out of the window for the vast majority of the night. The moon hangs perilously low and all around her she can smell the overpowering stench of humanity, of too many humans packed into one place, one world as if to personally stand against her and send her to her knees.

Her feet burn with an exertion that she has never experienced before; they seem to need rest from holding her form upright and she lights up in fury at how disgustingly human she has become, trapped in a vessel that she desires to break her way out of.

The human has long since succumbed to dreams, collapsed in a chair, his pain lingering about the cramped room as if to smother her. She grows bored soon, wants to lay her vessel's hands on someone and rip them to shreds. Her eyes occasionally tear away from the window whenever she hears the human mumbling incoherent words, only one that makes sense throughout his fevered dreams: Fred, as if this name should mean something to her, as if the human thinks she should be ashamed. Her ears force her to heed his cries, eyes force her to see the sobbing, slobbering mess he has become as he screams out the vacant girl's name.

She could have ceased the drinking if she had seen fit, could have pried the bottle from his weak and atrociously sweaty fingers and thrown him against the wall, and she could interfere in his dreams now, but he seems grotesquely content in them, squashed alongside the girl in memories and the tears rolling down his reddened cheeks sometimes dissolving into harsh laughter that sharply grates against her, causing her eyes to linger on his figure more than they should. She can feel the oppressive heat rolling off him in waves even from where she remains, and the strange, choked off sounds emanating from him somehow comfort her and convince her to stay.

Something holds her back from silencing him forever; she doesn't know what it is but it disgusts her and holds her back none the less. And maybe this means she is truly doomed, trapped and here Wesley is, the key to her undoing, the key to his own undoing.

She waits the ordeal out; she would rather stand here, her feet annoyingly aching, and wallow in her own grief and fury for a while more.

In this room overdone with silence, the strange noises in the dark allow her to wallow less in herself and begin to consider the mystery that is Wesley. He is so human and yet... he is so very fascinating for Illyria to focus her attention on.

The wind is unforgiving as she turns back to the open window, a million scents wafting into the room that the world has seen fit to unleash on her. They sink deep into her vessel's skin, though she hones in on one alone: the familiar scent that is Wesley.

Somehow even here, despite feeling like she is being choked out of existence, out of this horrible world she loathes and does not understand, he grounds her. His pain and his humanity stills her in a way she does not enjoy, and she should step forward and tear him apart but there's something in this human that grounds her, and not even the reek of despair and alcohol can drive her away.

She does not understand, but she no longer feels that he should be on his knees before her. So she is there when he wakes, there to document the moments that unnerved her, he! daring to throw increased confusion in her wake as he lingered in his delirium of fever and memory that seem to strangle her still as she continues to remain in the room, for no distinguishable reason; perhaps due to some small portion of her that feels safe from the world outside with him. She ridicules his actions and makes him aware of how much he disgusts her and somehow, he sits before her, unfazed by her power and ferocity, calling her names that perhaps are meant to cut deep, viewing her as simply nothing with his lack of interest towards and gaze settling anywhere but on her as she horrifically lingers.

She demands to be heard, respected, paid attention to and every fiber of her being may ache in despair to propel her forward, to snuff the life out of this pathetic creature, but her eyes widen and watch Wesley as if he is not only the most pitiful sight, but the most intriguing one.

The lack of purposeful action threatens to undo her as she hears the girl's name in her head, echoing throughout the corridors of her vessel's mind, yet the greatest, most troubling onslaught of all comes from a word she conjures up on her own: Wesley.

He will be the death of her and she will fight back, but she is not fighting back now and she is not referring to him by 'human' as she should, as she must. She is frustrated, her view of him unacceptable, and he is stupidly blind and oblivious. She wants to laugh, tell him if words could form properly that she should tear him apart, that his blood would look far more appealing outside of his body.

But she lingers in his alcohol and sweat and misery and in her own bitter, infuriating confusion.

And he will be her undoing.

**FIN**


End file.
